


Under the Midnight Skies

by coffeeandcas



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Feelings, Fluff, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sexual Content, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandcas/pseuds/coffeeandcas
Summary: “You found me.” Geralt had leaned closer, and Jaskier had swallowed nervously. “Did you like what you saw?”Jaskier has never voiced his true feelings for Geralt - not until now, when they're forced to cuddle up for warmth during a cold night at camp.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 53
Kudos: 1272





	Under the Midnight Skies

**Author's Note:**

> This is a brand new fandom for me, and I've only seen the Netflix show so I apologise if Geralt and Jaskier aren't 100% correct. But I love these two and the series, and this little plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone.

“We’ll camp here tonight,” Geralt has pulled Roach to a stop and dismounted while Jaskier was distracted humming a new tune and contemplating new lyrics to go with it. “And carry on come morning.”

“We’ll...” Jaskier trails off, looking around at the patch of dirt Geralt has indicated as their bed for the night. They’re fairly well shielded from the road by an outcrop of rocks on one side and a small copse of trees on the other, but it still doesn’t look exactly comfortable. “Here? Are you sure?”

“Yes.” 

Geralt isn’t looking at him. He’s rummaging in Roach’s saddle bags and patting the horse on the neck, a thank you for the day’s ride. The reins are wrapped around a nearby tree and Geralt shakes out a large blanket and settles it on the least rough-looking patch of ground. Behind him, the shadows of trees and rock are elongated by the setting sun, the sky an explosion of bloody reds and oranges. The valley gets cold at night - they both know it - and as far as Jaskier can tell they’re a long way from the nearest village, and therefore the nearest inn. But, he thinks, casting a baleful look at the patch of dirty, hard ground, perhaps a nighttime ride would be preferable to sleeping _there_. 

But Geralt wouldn’t go for it, he knows that already. The valley isn’t safe at night, and the rocks offer them some semblance of protection. It’s the sensible place to stop. Sensible, practical, logical, Geralt all over. 

“You know,” the low raps of the other man’s voice breaks into his thoughts. “Instead of standing around decorating the landscape, you could help.”

“Yes.” He hurries over, setting his lute carefully against a tree, a safe distance from Roach’s hooves. “Of course.”

“Find some dinner.” Geralt says and, like everything else, it’s a command and not a suggestion. “Hares are plentiful around here.”

“A hare.” Jaskier stares at him, incredulous. “You think I can catch a hare?”

“Very well.” Geralt is on his feet immediately. “You make up the camp. I shall find us something to eat.”

Then he’s gone, striding away into the brush, and Jaskier is left staring after him, arms full of the blanket Geralt has thrust as him as he’d walked past. As usual, he’s left wondering if he’s done something to piss the Witcher off, or if this is how things will always be between them. 

Shaking his head at his own thoughts, he busies himself arranging blankets and making the small, hard patch of ground as comfortable as possible. They’ll sleep beneath the stars tonight, and Jaskier will pretend it isn’t as romantic as it will seem to him. He is, after all, a bard. He sees romance everywhere. 

This thing between them, whatever it is, is far from romantic. At best it’s a fulfilment of basic needs, and at worst a thing of convenience. He doesn’t remember what the catalyst had been, why they’d ended up pressed together in sweat-drenched heat, but he remembers when he’d started looking at Geralt differently. They’d been in a small town a hundred miles West of here, and he’d walked in on Geralt in bed with a woman. A whore, someone he’d paid to keep him company in bed at night, but Jaskier had stopped dead with his hand on the doorknob, and hadn’t been able to tear his gaze from the muscles of Geralt’s back as he’d moved rhythmically over the petite woman, who had gasped and moaned with each of his firm thrusts. The candlelight had made his skin gleam, and his hair was damp with his own sweat. His hands were in fists in the blankets, and Jaskier could almost see where their bodies connected. He stood, transfixed, for longer than appropriate and didn’t realise he had been caught until Geralt raised his head. 

“Jaskier. Some privacy, please.”

Not a request, a command, and Jaskier had fled the room and the corridor with red cheeks and hidden himself in the corner of the tavern below for the remainder of the night. 

The next morning they’d left at first light, and Jaskier had been outside at the stables, waiting, for a long while before the strapping figure of the Witcher loomed out of the half-light. He makes to turn towards Roach, to distract himself and avoid eye-contact, to hopefully pretend that nothing untoward happened at all last night, but Geralt’s hand meets the wooden pillar beside his head and stops all movement in its tracks. 

“Why were you watching me?”

This isn’t a command. This is a question, spoken as softly as Geralt can possibly manage - which, to normal human standards is still roughly demanding - but there’s something in his tone which gives Jaskier pause and he dares lift his eyes to meet the Witcher’s. 

“It was an accident. I was looking for you.”

“You found me.” Geralt had leaned closer, and Jaskier had swallowed nervously. “Did you like what you saw?”

And from that moment, Jaskier had been lost. Geralt had waited for a response and, when none came, he’d made one of his typical noncommittal grunts and turned away, and the rest of the day had been spent in awkward tention, Jaskier lost in his own thoughts and Geralt stoic and silent as always. 

That night, at another nameless in a few miles down the beaten track, Geralt had come to Jaskier’s room while the moon was high in the night sky and that, as they say, was that. 

Now, Jaskier sits cross-legged on the blankets, strumming his life quietly, and thinking. He isn’t naive enough to think there are actual feelings involved between them, but he can’t deny he enjoys their time together probably more than Geralt does. They still don’t know each other too well, but what he does know about the Witcher he feels drawn to, and he wants to know more. Damn Geralt for being so secretive - he’s certain there are a hundred stories and more that would be the perfect muses for him for months to come. Perhaps with the help of a few ales at the next village over (more than a few, most likely) he could get the Witcher to loosen his tongue. 

They eat hare for dinner, skinned, gutted and roasted by Geralt’s capable hands while Jaskier fretted over the fire and their bedding and anything else at all to prevent him from getting blood and fur on his hands. But when it was finally time to eat, he couldn’t find much fault with their meal other than that there wasn’t very much of it. It didn’t escape his notice that Geralt’s portion was smaller than his own, but when he questioned the fact he was met with a customary grunt and didn’t bother to ask again. The meat was tender and juicy, and he wolfed it down in barely four bites then sat back against the rock with his hands clasped over his stomach and watched the final moments of the setting sub, as the sky turned from a riot of colour to pale, endless blue scattered with emerging stars. 

He dozed off and on, strumming his lute and humming, watching Geralt from the corner of his eye, and eventually his exhaustion overcomes him and he heads for their makeshift bed, pulling the blankets around him to keep out the impending cold. Geralt doesn’t join him, opting instead to clean his knife and dagger in the light of the fading fire, and in what Jaskier hopes is companionable silence. 

Later, much later, when Jaskier has managed an hour or two’s sleep in spite of the drastic drop in temperature, Geralt finally settles next to him, lying on his back and staring up at the starry sky. He doesn’t speak, and Jaskier doesn’t move towards him. He’s learned to always wait for Geralt to make the first move - or, he sometimes thinks, he’s learned that he himself is too shy to make the first move for fear of rejection. A rejection which, so far, is yet to happen. 

It starts with a hand taking his, pulling it gently from where it rests on his own stomach. Then Geralt is lying on his side facing him, kissing his knuckles then leaning in to kiss his neck. Jaskier allows himself to turn and look at the Witcher who is in only his undergarments and nothing more in spite of the chill. He suddenly feels frumpy and unattractive in his own layers and blankets that he has swathed around him for warmth. That feeling soon dissipates though as Geralt begins to undress him, using firm hands and gentle teeth, uncovering his body as though he’s a prize containing something very special inside. He shivers when bared completely and Geralt pulls him close, moving to lie on top of him and kisses his throat. 

“I’ll keep you warm.”

And keep him warm he does. 

He worships Jaskier’s body in a way he’s surely never done before, because Jaskier can’t ever remember feeling pleasure this intense. Geralt’s hands seem to be everywhere at once, followed by his mouth, and at some point Jaskier finds his mouth covered with a firm palm to try and contain the sounds he’s making. Any beast for ten miles would surely be able to hear him, and Geralt mutters something to that extent into the warm skin of his neck but he’s smiling so Jaskier doesn’t feel too ashamed of how into this he really is. Geralt, in comparison, is almost mute save for a few hard-earned grunts here and there but Jaskier knows he’s into it from the flush of his cheeks and the sweat gleaming across his biceps and pecs. Droplets of it fall onto Jaskier’s bare skin and he has the urge to lean up and lick it from the hollow of Geralt’s collarbone - so he does exactly that, and earns himself what sounds like a low moan for his troubles. A firm kiss is pressed to his mouth, then another, and Jaskier forgets all about the world around them, the cold, the wide open space, the beast they’re supposed to be hunting, the coin in Geralt’s pocket for the job, his lute, all of it. It’s just them, him and Geralt, underneath the stars. 

He allows himself the small pleasure of cuddling afterwards. Geralt lies on his back and Jaskier pushes needily against his side, seeking warmth and comfort, pulling the blankets up over them both as they catch their breath and come down from the high of being together. Geralt’s chest rises and falls heavily and he wipes his brow with his forearm, and Jaskier’s thighs ache deliciously from the variety of positions the Witcher had put him in over the last... however long. Time seems to stand still when they’re together. Jaskier has never had that with anyone else in his life, during his albeit few sexual encounters. But he does have some frame of reference at least, and he knows enough to know that Gerald is different.

He shifts uncomfortably, stones digging into him everywhere and the blanket shifting to allow a draught to creep in and cause his skin to goose. Physically, he's hinting for Gerald to pull him close but it doesn't happen - instead the Witcher lifts an arm above his own head and yawns, blinking up into the starlight. 

“That was enjoyable.”

It’s rare for Geralt to say anything at all after their couplings and Jaskier preens a little under the comment, yet manages to keep his voice steady when he replies. 

“It was.” Then his mouth gets the better of him. “You’re fantastic, you know that?”

Geralt grunts in response, and Jaskier hurries to clarify himself. 

“I mean, at _that_. Sex. But you know that, right? I hope you do, I mean, if you don’t then I must not be expressing myself too well. Perhaps I should write a sonnet about you instead, would that suffice?”

Geralt inclines his head and pins him with an incredulous look. But whether it’s the residual adrenaline or his exhaustion, or something inside him snapping after so long spent keeping his feelings to himself, but he can’t help himself and carries on talking. 

“Ever since that night at the inn, I didn’t realise things had changed but they have, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for it. But I’m glad they did, honestly. Very glad. Perhaps I don’t tell you that enough. Or at all.”

“Jaskier.”

“And I know that you don’t feel the same way _I_ do, in fact that isn’t strictly relevant as I’m not entirely sure _how_ I feel. But I do know you don’t actually like me, you just tolerate me, and while I can stand that for a time I’m not sure it’s very good for either of us in the long term.”

“Jaskier.”

“Not to say that there will be a long term, that isn’t what I meant at all. I don’t think of us like that. Our job is a dangerous one, isn’t it, and you can’t get too invested as who knows what tomorrow might bring, and-“

“Jaskier!”

Geralt’s voice breaks into his rambling, and he halts himself, cheeks flushing as he realises what he’d been saying. Shit. He prepares to sit up and pull on his clothes, to turn away and feign sleep for the rest of the night, and is therefore unprepared for Geralt reaching for him lazily with one arm and tugging him close to his side. 

“Get some rest.” 

“Alright.” He swallows, shuffles around, tries to get comfortable. There’s a rock sticking him in the back and his calf feels like it could cramp up at any minute. It’s colder in the valley than he’d thought. “But Geralt-“

“I like you, Jaskier.” The low murmur is pressed into his hair and he stills, shocked. “I like you very much.” Lips press to his temple and he feels all the tension drain out of him in one long rush. Geralt likes him, can this be real? “But if you don’t go the fuck to sleep I may have to kill you. Which will certainly have an adverse effect on any of those long term plans you speak of. Understand?”

There’s a warmth in the Witcher’s tone he’s never heard before, and he’s certain that the arm holding him tightness a little. Geralt’s thumb rubs circles into his bicep, soothing, saying something that a thousand words could not hope to achieve, and in spite of the cold in the valley Jaskier’s heart fills with an unfamiliar, but very welcome, warmth. 

“Yes, Geralt.” He shuffles around again, this time managing to get comfortable against the older man’s side. They both look up at the night sky, content in each other’s company as a shooting star moves smoothly across the canvas above them. Soon, Jaskier’s eyes begin to close and he doesn’t fight sleep, he just lets it come. “I understand.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you thought and if you enjoyed my work :) 
> 
> Follow me on Twitter for writing updates if you like! @coffeeandcas


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